History of the world rice cultivation

History of the
world rice cultivation

Riceis
theseedof
themonocotplantsOryza
sativa(Asian
rice) orOryza
glaberrima(African
rice). As acereal
grain, it is the most importantstaple foodfor a
large part of the world's human population, especially inAsiaand
theWest Indies. It is the grain with the third-highest
worldwide production, aftermaize(corn) andwheat,
according to data for 2009.

Rice is the
most important grain with regard to human nutrition and caloric intake,
providing more than one fifth of thecaloriesconsumed
worldwide by the human species.

Rice
cultivation is well-suited to countries and regions with low labor costs and
high rainfall, as it is labor-intensive to cultivate and requires ample water.
Rice can be grown practically anywhere, even on a steep hill or mountain.
Although its parent species are native to Asia and certain parts of Africa, centuries of trade and exportation have made it
commonplace in many cultures worldwide.

1-Origin of the rice cultivation

There have
been plenty of debates on the origins of the domesticated rice. However, in
2011, a combined effort byStanford University,New York University,WashingtonUniversity,
andPurdueUniversityhas
provided conclusive evidence that domesticated rice has a single origin in the Yangtze ValleyofChina..

The precise date of the first
domestication is unknown, but depending on the molecular clock estimate used by
the scientists, the date is estimated to be 8,200 to 13,500 years ago.

The large
number of wild rice phytoliths at the Diaotonghuan level dating from
12,000–11,000BPindicates
that wild rice collection was part of the local means of subsistence. Changes
in the morphology of Diaotonghuan phytoliths dating from 10,000–8,000 BP show
that rice had by this time been domesticated.

Soon
afterwards the two major varieties ofIndicaand
Japonica/Sinicarice were being grown
in Central China. In the late 3rd millennium
BC, there was a rapid expansion of rice cultivation into mainland Southeast
Asia and westwards across India
and Nepal.

In 2011, a
combined effort by theStanford
University,New York
University,WashingtonUniversity
in St. Louis, andPurdueUniversityhas
provided the strongest evidence yet that there is only one single origin of
domesticated rice, in the Yangtze Valleyof
China.

2-The rice cultivation in Continental East Asia

Rice appears
to have been used by the earlyNeolithicpopulations of Lijiacun and
Yunchanyan. Evidence of possible rice cultivation inChinafrom
c. 11,500BPhas
been found, however it is still questioned whether the rice was indeed being
cultivated, or instead beinggatheredas wild rice.

Bruce Smith,
an archaeologist at theSmithsonian Institutionin
Washington, D.C., says that evidence has been mounting
that theYangtzewas probably the site
of the earliest rice cultivation.

Zhao (1998)
argues that collection of wild rice in theLate Pleistocenehad, by 6400 BC, led to the use
of primarily domesticated rice.

Morphological
studies of ricephytolithsfrom
the Diaotonghuan archaeological site clearly show the transition from the
collection of wild rice to the cultivation of domesticated rice. The large
number of wild rice phytoliths at the Diaotonghuan level dating from
12,000–11,000 BP indicates that wild rice collection was part of the local
means of subsistence.

Changes in the
morphology of Diaotonghuan phytoliths dating from 10,000–8,000 BP show that
rice had by this time been domesticated. Analysis of Chinese rice residues from
Pengtoushan, which werecarbon 14 datedto 8200–7800 BCE, show that rice
had been domesticated by this time.

Crawford and
Shen (1998) reported the earliest of 14 AMS or radiocarbon dates on rice from
at least nine Early to Middle Neolithic sites is no older than 7000 BC, that
rice from theHemuduand Luojiajiao sites
indicates that rice domestication likely began before 5000 BC, but that most
sites in China from which rice remains have been recovered are younger than
5000 BC.

3-The rice cultivation inIndian subcontinent

The earliest
remains of rice in theIndian
subcontinenthave
been found in theIndo-Gangetic
Plain and date from 7000–6000 BC though the earliest widely accepted
date for cultivated rice is placed at around 3000–2500 BC with findings in
regions belonging to theIndus Valley Civilization.

Denis J. Murphy (2007) further details the
spread of cultivated rice from India
intoSoutheast
Asia: Several wild cereals, including rice, grew in theVindhyan Hills, and rice cultivation, at sites
such as Chopani-Mando and Mahagara, may have been underway as early as 7000 BP.

Many cultures have evidence of early rice
cultivation, including China,
India, and the civilizations
of Southeast Asia. However, the earliest
archaeological evidence comes from central and eastern China and dates to 7000–5000 BC.

WildOryzarice
appeared in the Belan andGangesvalley regions ofnorthern Indiaas
early as 4530 BC and 5440 BC, respectively, although many believe it may have
appeared earlier.

Rice was
cultivated in theIndus Valley
Civilization. Agricultural activity during the second millennium BC
included rice cultivation in theKashmirandHarrappanregions.
Mixed farming was the basis of Indus valley
economy.

According to
Zohary and Hopf (2000),O. sativawas
recovered from a grave atSusain Iran (dated to the 1st century AD) at one end of
the ancient world, another domestication of rice in South
Asia.

Perennial wild
rices still grow inAssamandNepal.
It seems to have appeared around 1400 BC in southern India after its domestication in the
northern plains.

According to
Zohary and Hopf (2000),O. sativawas
recovered from a grave atSusain Iran (dated to the
1st century AD) at one end of the ancient world, while at the same time rice
was grown in thePovalley
in Italy.

Chopani-Mando
and Mahagara are located on the upper reaches of theGangesdrainage system,
and it is likely that migrants from this area spread rice farming down the
Ganges valley into the fertile plains ofBengal,
and beyond into south-east Asia.

4-Southeast Asia

Rice is the
staple for all classes in contemporarySoutheast Asia, fromMyanmartoIndonesia.

In Indonesia, evidence of wild Oryzarice
on the island ofSulawesidates
from 3000 BCE.

In thePhilippines, the greatest evidence of rice
cultivation since ancient times can be found in the Cordillera Mountain RangeofLuzonin
the provinces ofApayao,Benguet,MountainProvinceand Ifugao.
Those are 2,000 to 3,000-year-old terraces that were carved into the mountains
by ancestors of the Batad indigenous people.

Evidence of
wet rice cultivation as early as 2200 BC has been discovered at bothBan
Chiangand
Ban Prasat inThailand.

5-The rice cultivation in Korea and Japan

The proof of dry-land rice cultivation was
introduced toKoreaandJapansome time between 3500 and 1200 BC. The
cultivation of rice in Korea
and Japan
during that time occurred on a small-scale, fields were impermanent plots, and
evidence shows that in some cases domesticated and wild grains were planted
together. The technological, subsistence, and social impact of rice and grain
cultivation is not evident in archaeological data until after 1500 BC.

In 2003, Korean archaeologists alleged they discovered burnt grains of domesticated rice in Soro-ri, Korea,
which dated to 13,000 BC. These predate the oldest grains in China, which were dated to 10,000
BC, and potentially challenge the mainstream explanation that domesticated rice
originated in China.The findings were received by academia with strong
skepticism, and the results and their publicizing has been cited as being
driven by a combination of nationalist and regional interests.

6-The rice
cultivation in Africa

African rice has been cultivated for 3500
years. Between 1500 and 800 BC, Oryza
glaberrima propagated
from its original centre, the Niger River delta,
and extended to Senegal.
However, it never developed far from its original region.Its cultivation even declined in favour of the
Asian species, possibly brought to the African continent by Arabs
coming from the east coast between the 6th and 11th centuries CE. It helped Africa conquer its famine of 1203.

7-The rice cultivation in Middle East

In Iraq rice
was grown in some areas of southern Iraq. With the rise of Islam it
moved north to Nisibin, the southern shores of the Caspian Sea and
then beyond the Muslim world into the valley of Volga.
In Palestine, modern day Israel, rice came to be grown in the JordanValley.
Rice is also grown in Yemen.

8-The rice cultivation in Europe

The Moors brought Asiatic rice to the Iberian
Peninsula in the 10 th century. Records indicate it was grown
in Valencia and Majorca.
In Majorca, rice cultivation seems to have
stopped after the Christian conquest, although historians are not certain.

Muslims also brought rice to Sicily, where
it was an important crop long before it is noted in the plain
of Pisa (1468) or in the Lombard plain (1475), where its cultivation
was promoted by Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, and
demonstrated in his model farms.

After the 15th century, rice spread throughout Italy and then France, later propagating to all
the continents during the age of European exploration.

9-The rice cultivation in Caribbean and Latin America

Rice is not native to the Americas but was introduced to Latin
America and the Caribbean by European colonizers at an early date
with Spanish colonizers introducing Asian rice to
Mexico in the 1520s at Veracruz and
the Portuguese and their African slaves introducing it at about the
same time to Colonial Brazil.

Recent scholarship suggests that enslaved
Africans played an active role in the establishment of rice in the New World and
that African rice was an important crop from an
early period. Varieties of rice and bean dishes that were a
staple dish along the peoples of West Africa remained a staple among their
descendants subjected to slavery in the Spanish New World colonies, Brazil and elsewhere in the Americas.

The Native Americans of the what is now
the Eastern United States may have practiced
extensive agriculture with forms of wild rice.

10-The rice cultivation in United States

In 1694, rice arrived in South
Carolina, probably originating from Madagascar.

In the United States, colonial South Carolina and Georgia grew
and amassed great wealth from the Slavery labor obtained from
the Senegambia area of West Africa and from coastal Sierra Leone.
At the port of Charleston, through which 40% of all American slave imports
passed, slaves from this region of Africa brought the highest prices, in
recognition of their prior knowledge of rice culture, which was put to use on
the many rice plantations around Georgetown, Charleston,
and Savannah.

The invention of the rice mill increased
profitability of the crop, and the addition of water power for the mills in
1787 by millwright Jonathan Lucas was another step forward.

Rice culture in the southeastern U.S. became
less profitable with the loss of slave labor after the American Civil War, and it finally died out
just after the turn of the 20th century.

In the southern United
States, rice has been grown in southern Arkansas, Louisiana,
and east Texas
since the mid-19th century. Rice cultivation began in California during the California Gold Rush, when an estimated
40,000 Chinese laborers immigrated to the state and grew small amounts of the
grain for their own consumption.

References to wild rice in the Americas are to
the unrelated Zizania palustris. More than 100 varieties
of rice are commercially produced primarily in six states (Arkansas,
Texas, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Missouri,
and California) in the U.S.

11-The rice
cultivation inAustralia

Rice was one of the earliest crops planted in Australia by British settlers, who had experience
with rice plantations in the Americas
and the subcontinent.

Although attempts to grow rice in the well-watered
north of Australia
have been made for many years, they have consistently failed because of
inherent iron and manganese toxicities in the soils and destruction
by pests.

In the 1920s it was seen as a
possible irrigation crop on soils within the Murray-DarlingBasin that
were too heavy for the cultivation of fruit and too infertile for wheat.

Californian varieties of rice were
found suitable for the climate in the Riverina, and the first mill opened at Leeton in 1951.

Even before this Australia's rice production greatly exceeded
local needs, and rice exports to Japan have become a major source of
foreign currency.

Above-average rainfall from the 1950s
to the middle 1990sencouraged the expansion of the Riverina rice
industry, but its prodigious water use in a practically waterless region began
to attract the attention of environmental scientists.

The Australian rice industry is
somewhat opportunistic, with the area planted varying significantly from season
to season depending on water allocations in the Murray and Murrumbidgee irrigation regions.

Today, the majority of all rice
produced comes fromChina,India,Indonesia,Pakistan, Bangladesh,Vietnam,Thailand,Myanmar,Philippines,
andJapan.Asianfarmers still account for 92% of
the world's total rice production.